Behaviorism, Radical or not radical. (My other EdPs class)

Pg 69
Clockwork Orange
"perfect society"?, possible? desirable?

Walden Two : From rats to humans. Some people think that Walden Two was a response to the issue or reintegrating GI's into society. His first book left the extrapolation of rodent behavior to human behavior with the quote 'let him extrapolate who will', not making the extrapolation, but implying it. And finally, Skinner wrote a textbook that spent a whole chapter on a strong concept in Walden Two - self control, believing that it was the way to be productive and happy.

Communes of the 60's were based on the Walden Two concept, if not that community specifically.

1967 Twin Oaks Community (web site) is started in Lousia, Virginia.

1971 Los Horcones (web site), is started in Hermosilla, Mexico.

Twin Oakers have a penchant for naming everything, including all of our communally-owned vehicles. By Valerie Renwick-Porter. [23 Jan 2006]
No one has a personal vehicle while living here. Here's a list of our current vehicle names:
From our female icon theme:

• Indigo Girl (a blue car)


• Moon Unit (a silvery/gold truck)


• Betty Boop


• Lola Puns on the word "car":


• Cari Krishna


• Escargot

Two of our vans:

• Vandrogyny


• Vanarchy

Other vehicle names:

• DragonWagon (greeny-blue station wagon)


• Navy Gravy (a tip of the hat to counter-culture icon Wavy Gravy) (a navy truck)


• Higher Yellow (reference to a Mao quote) (a yellow truck)


• Utofia (our tofu delivery truck)


• Viva Zapata (a nod to the Zapatistas)


• V-Eight (the last and punniest (it has a V8 engine) of our "beverage" series which included


• OJ and Cocoa, which were orange and brown vehicles)


• Blanche Whipple (white van)


• Ozone


• Jonathan Lesbian Seagull

BF Skinner - all behavior is in response to environmental stimuli - there is no free will. Person does not choose - person is conditioned. Belief in free will and dignity prevents "the prospect of using scientific methods to modify behavior for the purpose of building a happier and better organized society."

1. Select Goal : Quit smoking.


2. Determine Appropriate Reinforcers : $25 check.


3. Select Procedures for Changing Behavior : wife mails off check whenever she sees him smoking.


4. Implement Procedures and Record Results : Three checks and he had quit smoking.


5. Evaluate Progress and Revise as Necessary : he never started smoking again, so no revision necessary.

Behaviorism in Instructional Design -

1. Instructional Objectives - good instructional objectives have behavior that is to be performed and observed.


2. [Mager, RF, 1962] - the 3 component objectives : behavior to be acquired, conditions behavior is demonstrated, how well the behavior is to be performed (80% of the time, 90% accuracy, etc).


3. [Gagne, 1985]


4. [Merrill, 1983]

Personalized Systems of Instruction [PSI] - Unit Mastery Requirement. Small units with specific behavioral instructional objectives, work at own pace but cannot proceed until you have achieved mastery.

International Society for Performance Improvement; spawn of Behaviorism and Instructional Design.

Things to do for next class;

• Chapter 3 : Cognitive Information Processing
• Article - look at what are the behaviors the researchers were looking for in order to identify the variables
• Second Quiz
• Participation in e-discussion on Behaviorism - ends Sept 12th
• No class on the 20th, meet with Nikita and Lani at Nakita's house.